Update 4.5 Economy Preview: new pilot's journey

Author - War Robots

In the update 4.3 we launched a major rebalance. It's been a couple of months since then, and now it is evident that high-level matches became way more varied. Robots like Haechi, Bulgasari and Spectre aren't as dominant as before, yet still popular. At the same time, there are more and more successful pilots on Mercury, Bulwark, Falcon, Hellburner and other robots.

Overall, we are happy with the results — and we hope you are as well! There will be more work on high-level balance in later updates, but at this point, we focus on the opposite side of War Robots — the new player experience.

Tweak: Equipment unlocks in a new order

War Robots has lots of equipment that encourages complex team coordination (such as Lock-down-based weaponry). And yet, for new pilots all this tech unlock way earlier than much simpler point-and-shooters like Magnum, Taran, and Trident.

It's about time we address that.

Starting with 4.5, newcomers will gradually learn all the ropes of War Robots through their robots and weapons. Here's the plan:

Stage 1 (levels 1-7): basics

First, pilots learn to walk, use covers and hold the target using their classic Molots and Punishers.

Then Magnum and Pin appear, and they learn the difference between kinetic, explosive and energy weaponry. Soon after, Gekko and Nashorn help them taste long-range combat.

Stage 2 (8-13): advanced piloting

Here pilots access the trusty workhorses like Orkan and Taran. Also, first support equipment (ECU and Ancile) debuts here.

Stage 3 (14+): expert training

Once pilots get the basics, time to introduce team-focused tactics. We spice up the core principles with new tools: Lock-down, Suppression, and Damage-over-time.

As before, at level 20 pilots have everything unlocked in the store — we only change the order in which the items appear. This way, newcomers will learn about them when they have all the required foundations set.

For robots, there's a similar structure:

First pilots go through the basics on Vityaz, Gepard and Rogatka…

...then we introduce Griffin, Hover and Lancelot and their likes…

...and sprinkle them with Fujin, Hellburner, Weyland, Invader and other robots with complex playstyles and abilities

New order of robots and weapons unlocking. Yellow names for Gold items, blue — for components-based ones.

Note: we temporarily removed Boa and Golem from the store. They don't fit the current meta landscape very well, so we took them back for some modernization. If you have Boas or Golems, they will remain in your Hangar and will be updated once we return them back to stock later in the future.

Tweak: Workshop and Battle rewards are introduced later

In the update 4.2, Workshop received lots of good (and cheap) robots/weapon options. We expected them to help novices learn about Workshop and components. However, later we noticed that 93% of all components are ordered by pilots of level 20 and higher, while for everyone below everything just got very confusing.

To address this, we pushed the introduction of the Workshop up to the level 21 (instead of 12) and left only the later equipment there. Everything we removed from the Workshop, is now available for Gold or Silver.

Note: if you are below level 21 and already have the Workshop open, it will remain open after the update.

For a similar reason, we also pushed further the first Battle Reward by increasing Honor requirements (while, of course, proportionally increasing payouts) and removed Tokens and Black Market keys from Private-league chests that come before Black Market and WR Royale introduction at their respective levels.

Note: in 4.5 Battle Rewards will include components Spark, Exodus, Falcon, and Bulwark

Tweak: Item costs are revised

Along with the new unlock order, we revised equipment costs, aligning items unlocking on the same level closer to each other.

Some Gold and Silver items (Lancelot, Fury, Noricum, Pinata) became more expensive. Additionally, Workshop components now take more silver to produce.

However, in most cases, there's a significant drop either in initial cost, upgrade cost or upgrade time.

Note: these changes will affect all equipment acquired after July 5th.